History of aviation safety; the satisfying sighs of relief due to developments in Aviation safety

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THE FIRST SIGH OF RELIEF

By the end of the Second World War, at the Yalta conference, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt could not come to an agree-ment at the highest political level on a common blueprint for worldwide post-war commercial aviation.

The first sigh of relief was when the trio found a solution on the regulatory and organizational level by establishing the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). On 4th _{April 1947, a convention} came into force to ‘’ensure the safe and or-derly growth of international civil aviation throughout the world’’. Safety became embedded in the structure of interna-tional aviation as an integral aspect, deal-ing with air fares & fees, tariffs & treaties, certification & licensing of crews, aircraft & airports and providing air traffic services to enable interoperability and free ac-cess of any nation in the rapidly expand-ing aviation network. Harmonized coop-eration between sovereign nations was laid down in a series of annexes, dealing with each of the elements of the aviation system as a basis for national legislation and regulations. Technology became the flywheel for progress. Safety was

guar-anteed worldwide through harmoniza-tion and standardizaharmoniza-tion of technical and operational equipment, dealing with international standards, operating proce-dures, recommended practices, training, traffic control, navigation, communica-tion and airport facilities. Ironically, the safety Annex became no. 13, providing a protocol for international cooperation on the investigation of major air accidents. Since then, there has been a rapid and continuous growth of aviation, expansion of global networks, rapid technology de-velopments of metal aircrafts, jet engine technologies, and navigation & communi-cation facilities. The first generation of jet aircraft saw steep learning curves with un-anticipated midair disintegration –such as with the De Havilland Comet. Such air di-sasters however, also brought knowledge about metal fatigue, structural integrity and commonly applicable safety design principles. By the introduction of the sec-ond and third generation of jet aircraft with the glass cockpit, navigation displays and Flight Management Systems, safety records on accident frequency improved significantly. Air crash survivability further reduced the risk of flying, while victim care and family assistance enhanced public

confidence. The fourth generation intro-duced Fly by Wire, Flight Envelope Pro-tection and Safety Management Systems during operations. Aviation became a dis-tinct class of high tech systems: NON PLUS ULTRA safe, characterized as beyond 10-7 safe with respect to the accident rate. The introduction of the Boeing 787 and Airbus 380 has seen no hull loss yet, an unprece-dented achievement towards zero defects and First Time Right principles.

THE SECOND SIGH OF RELIEF

A second sigh of relief could be heard when major air accidents – US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson (see Figure 1) and Qa-ntas flight 32 near Singapore (see Figure 2) - occurred without loss of life in situa-tions beyond design condisitua-tions. Aviation has become a matured system where conflicting values –safety, environment, economy and sustainability-are care-fully taken into consideration in complex trade-offs and risk assessments. Perfor-mance requirements on fuel economy, noise abatement, airspace and airport capacity demands, punctuality, efficiency and passenger rights prevail, laid down in European policy documents such as Flight path 2050 and framework projects on

sin-The satisfying sighs of relief due to developments in Aviation safety

”Aviation safety is an Integral part of my career. Being part of TU Delft’s impressive

record of research on Aviation safety, my career has been with a sense of purpose and

a responsibility to equip students to deal with the status quo challenges on Aviation

safety, developments, Investigations and Optimizations. As I retire from the faculty

with a gratifying sigh of relief, It’s a pleasure for me write this article on my experience

and career along the progressive stages of Aviation safety.“

TEXT Prof.dr.ir. J.A.A.M. (John) Stoop, Aerospace safety Advocate, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, TU Delft

HISTORY OF AVIATION SAFETY

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MARCH 2014 Leonardo Times

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gle European skies, Clean Sky and Horizon 2020. Changes in business models, shifts in global networks and new entrants in design and manufacturing became major game changers.

THE THIRD SIGH

However, a third sigh, this time, of disbelief went through society when a series of unanticipated major air crashes occurred in a relatively short period. Questions were raised about the inability to diag-nose their causes, formulated as ‘Black Swans and Unknown Unknowns’. Inher-ent complexity and dynamic behavior was deemed so overwhelming that pro-active analysis would become impossible, limiting safety diagnosis of such systems to their ‘’emergent’’ properties during op-erations. The general public wondered whether aviation had become safety com-placent, whether pilots were over reliant on automation, suff ering from a loss of situation awareness. Should unmanned fl ight provide the answer in eliminating human error or should we inevitably ac-cept occasional losses for the common good and desirable growth? Do we in-evitably proceed on the road to Hyper Taylorisation and full automation? The sector itself responded slightly diff erently, aware of early warnings for changes that might impact the safety integrity of the aviation system. In order to comply with a steady growth, environmental constraints, changes in global markets, intercontinen-tal networks and new business models, ambitious plans for the future have been developed, dealing with various forms of ‘Next-Gen’ approaches with a high level of investments in new technologies.

THE EXPERTS SPEAK

The need for ‘Next-Gen’ also left the safe-ty investigation communisafe-ty with ques-tions on how to deal with such changes, preserving the achieved level of safety, skills and competences of the investiga-tors, adapting them to the second age of aviation. Risk is a social construct, aiming at consensus on acceptable level of risk, balancing safety versus other values such as economy and environment. Has safety become an operational constraint instead of a critical system value? As formulated by Deborah Hersman, chair of the Na-tional Transport Safety Board in the ‘Green versus Safe’ Air traffi c symposium hosted by the LR Faculty, TU Delft (see Figure 3) , ‘’aviation is all about defying gravity, safe-ly and suresafe-ly. There is no credit from the public for past achievements. Airlines are only as good as their last fl ight. What hap-pens today is a given and continued im-provement is expected to safely defy grav-ity tomorrow’’. Yannick Maligne, Senior Vice-President and Chief product safety offi cer of Airbus stated that we perma-nently must address the main threats to safety: ‘’overconfi dence at all levels, main-taining highest professional standards and focus on right things to do fi rst’’. We must capitalize from positive outcomes too like, providing feedback from reality, learning from new experiences etc. Safety investigations are problem providers for knowledge development. Design inter-ventions can be evidence and knowledge based. Although there may be suffi cient ‘’low hanging fruit’’ we must aim for the high hanging fruit as well. We should ap-ply a consistent approach by disseminat-ing existdisseminat-ing and introducdisseminat-ing new energy state/landing performing based advisory systems. For aerospace engineers, safety

is not only a virtual or social reality: safety is dealing with defying gravity, with physi-cal energy, reality, and design tradeoff s. As Tom Haueter of NTSB said, “It’s the as-sumption that kills you”. Asas-sumptions on design, modeling, performance, opera-tions should be transparent and validated. Jean-Paul Trouadec of French BEA investi-gation agency said in the report on AF447: “we must refl ect on the validity of human error notions and human performance models, since they did not generate ex-pected behavior of the fl ight crew”. THE FINAL AND MOST SATISFYING SIGH

Fortunately, as aerospace designers, we can fall back on two fi rewalls in the feed forward and feedback processes between design and operation: certifi cation and investigation. We teach our own students principles of forensic engineering, safety investigation, system engineering prin-ciples, integrated and multidisciplinary design optimization methods. We have to substantiate our own responsibilities with providing industry and society with qualifi ed designers, engineers and inves-tigators to cope challenges of Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act and exorbitant claims.

Finally, a personal and fi nal sigh of relief: by the Honorary Doctorate of Deborah Hers-man, our faculty has demonstrated dedi-cation to safety that has made the aviation system NON PLUS ULTRA safe. Assured by the fi nal sigh of relief that a responsible group of next generation students will take over, I, John Stoop (Aerospace safety advocate, 1976-2014) am retiring grace-fully from the Faculty of Aerospace Engi-neering, TU Delft.

Figure 2. The full damage of the R-R Trent 900 Rolls Royce engine of the Qan-tas fl ight QF32, an Airbus A380 outbound from Singapore.

Figure 1. Airbus 320 fl ight 1549 crash into the Hudson River shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport, North Carolina

Figure 3. Lecture by Mrs. Deborah Hersman, Chairman, NTSB, US at the ‘Green versus Safe’ air traffi c safety symposium in the LR Faculty, TU Delft.

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